Currently: London

collesium

This was the start of a 3-week holiday in June/July. It was my last real holiday before I move back to Perth in September. The realization of this is slowly creeping in as the holiday gets closer. I’m so excited to spend the summer in Europe, but the thought that next winter I cant go to Switzerland for a ski trip is pretty tragic. To be fair, next winter in Europe will be my summer in Australia, so I get to a double summer. Also pretty great. Anyway, what I am saying is that its bitter sweet. I am so happy to come home to my boyfriend and family and friends, but so sad to leave behind the Europe travels and the new friends I have made.

So this holiday starts in Rome, Isaac is coming straight up from Perth to Rome, so we will meet in the airport. Kinda romantic right? Meet you in Rome, that’s what I thought. Until staff travel had a different idea and I was stuck in Heathrow airport for 8 hours trying to leave the country. I was to fly with BA, and it seemed that every BA employee was trying to get to Rome, which means they have priority over me as I work for Qantas. So 5th flight lucky and I was finally on my way, my romantic ideas of meeting Isaac in the airport shattered. He made his way to our accommodation, and I was to meet him there. We stayed at Roma Camping Village, a common stop for contiki travelers. It was a great place to stay with a really nice atmosphere and good, cheap facilities, but it was a little out of the city. The first night we caught up and had cheap pizza and beer at the camping grounds.

The next day was our only full day in Rome, as we were out early next morning for Sorrento. We caught a bus into the city, and started our day at the Vatican. What we didn’t realize is that the only day we had in Rome was a Sunday, so the museum was closed the whole day. We were still able to go into the city, but we also found that we were a few hours too early for the pope’s speech, so we didn’t even get to see that. However the city was fantastic to see, and as we come in jeans (making sure our knees and shoulders were covered) we were sweating profusely by the time we lined up and were able to enter, but this didn’t deter from it at all. We walked into the city, past the castel san tangelo, up to piazza del popolo, and down to trevi fountain. Upon recommendation we went to gelato di san crispino, which was worth a trip. We made our way to the pantheon, took at look at the world’s largest freestanding dome, and had a pizza lunch in the square.

We made our way to the coliseum and joined the massive queues to see the inside. As it turned out it didn’t take too long to get through the queue so we didn’t mind so much. It was awe inspiring to be at this iconic location, to get a glimpse into the past. By this time our feet were aching from all the walking, and we stumbled and complained our way across the river Tiber. As walked along through all the pop up markets and bars, it had a lovely atmosphere. Isaac and I made our way close to badilica di santa maria in trastevere for a drink. There were many bars an restaurants in the area, it was really lovely, and we went to ai marmi for pizza, again by recommendation from some Italian friends. It seemed to be a popular spot for the locals and the restaurant was heaving, despite there being a pizzeria next door which looked quite quiet. We were a bit stuck of how to get back to our accommodation from here, and it has been a long day, so we got an uber to pick us up. On the drive home we caught a glimpse of Rome from above during sunset, and it was truly magical.

It was time to move on, and we organized a train from Rome to Naples the next morning. From Naples we went to the port and took a ferry to Sorrento, the whole process taking about 4 hours and onto part 2 of our summer adventure.